Well I tried (nothing personal but we all love it when someone references a stat that does the opposite of what they claimed it would)

Unfortunately yours doesn't bearing in mind these are from 2010 - SL regular Rounds onlyPlayer ..... Appearances ..... Tackle Busts ..... Avg per game

Eastwood ….. 15 ….. 38 ….. 2.53

Ablett ….. 16 ….. 26 ….. 1.63

Peacock ….. 17 ….. 27 ….. 1.59

Jones-Buchanan ….. 25 ….. 38 ….. 1.52

Burgess ….. 15 ….. 21 ….. 1.40

Lauitiiti ….. 17 ….. 21 ….. 1.24

Bailey ….. 22 ….. 23 ….. 1.05

Leuluai ….. 21 ….. 18 ….. 0.86

Kirke ….. 24 ….. 12 ….. 0.50

I miss Eastwood.

Your second point is correct. Which makes a mockery of your first point.

How do you know Kirke is not earning top money? I doubt it, but he could be for all we know. Which is why the point of him been good value in a salary capped sport is irrelevant when you don't know what he is on, especially if he is not producing the performances to go with it consistently.

Look at my original post. Kirke is a very valuable member of the squad - squad being the word.

Im simply saying that he could be a better player. The same could be said of anyone.

Gotcha, you're just arguing for argument's sake! I think, given the quality of our leadership & business management team, it's a perfectly fair assumption that Kirke is not one of the top earners at our club.

If you want to argue otherwise, you're only wasting your own time & breath (or fingers in this instance).

C'mon Gotcha, everyone knows what every player at Leeds is on and even if there are a few that don't it doesn't really matter because everyone knows it's scrupilously fair. The CEO has a scale and everything that calculates annual salary to a tenth of a penny.

He's been a 1st team player now for 6 seasons. I very much doubt he's a top earner but I also doubt he's as cheap as chips.

He doesn't offer better value in ££££s than kids we have in our Academy system and 90% of the time he doesn't offer better value on the pitch.

I also hope Mr Gilder is talking in generic terms because 90% of the time Kirke neither powers over defenders or steps them. He never wins a collision in attack (or defence either) which is frankly unacceptable for the heaviest player in the pitch and he rarely wins a quick PTB.

Now, these harsh facts have appeared on a thread praising kirke because performances like Friday's are all too rare. I hope they become more frequent.

This may be semantics, but to my mind if you're not in the 17 when everyone's fit, you're not first choice.

I did use the word "probably" to describe his relative low cost. If he's on top money then yes, he is poor value for it. As for letting youth through, that's a slightly different question. If Ambler and Manning are/were performing comparably (didn't really see much of either so wouldn't know) then I would totally agree that they would be a better bet. If everyone's fit I wouldn't have him in place of Bailey, notwithstanding that even without injuries it's no bad thing to have enough options to give your front rowers the odd break.

I'm not Ian Kirke's number 1 fan or anything, so this is about as much energy as I am likely to expend on the case for the defence, I just think he perhaps offers more than people think. I also think most of what's lacking is application, rather than aptitude, which I entertain some hope Brian Mac will either remedy or get shut. If ther former I think there's a very effective RL player in there somewe in there, who would probably be in the first choice 17.

Nah then

Although I had me tuppence worth earlier in't thread it's very disappointing to see a large number of folks berating a member of our fine Union.

Thanking you kindly.